Your questions about consumer buying behaviour purchase decision

What kind of decision making goes into buying cheap products?

The current economic crisis throughout much of the world is having a major impact on marketing. Today's climate has encouraged marketers to develop new strategies to deal with changing shopping behaviors of consumers as a result of the current unstable financial upheaval. As a result of this upheaval, US citizens want to live their lifestyles and use similar products like they always have, but for a cheaper price. A recent marketing trend has emerged due to our tough economic times and marketers are now stressing others to buy items that are functional, but also cheap, simple, small, and practical. This new trend captures the phenomenon of simple, small and/or cheap products and services designed for low income consumers in emerging markets, with cross-over appeal to consumers in mature consumer societies.

MY QUESTION IS....How does this new trend trend impact marketing in terms of consumerdecision making, shopping and purchase behavior, and consumer usage patterns?

Admin answers:

This is easy...Loving Economics I'll help you piece together the puzzle...

If something is cheap it is that way for a reason...
It can be of lower quality than a related product

Its cost of production can be cheaper because of some innovation by the creator

The company who priced it that low can do so because it does such high volume of sales, it can still earn money on lower profit margins...

JUST TO NAME A FEW

Now lets look at how this influences consumer decision making and everything that comes with it

Consumers will ask themselves one basic question when deciding whether to buy a low price product or its more expensive counterpart.

Is the quality of this product so low that even a lower price is not attractive?

Will my use of this product exceed the price I paid for it, or is its quality so low that it will inhibit me to actually consume/use it to the extent I wanted to use a product of this nature.

You can probably figure out how consumers will react to a simple "yes" or "no" answer from either of these questions.

In these economic times the desire to have excess capital is high...therefore, there is an added emphasis to the benefit of a cheap product...however, people will still avoid very low quality products if they provide far less benefit than they expect even at with the attraction of costing less...

Marketing should try to attract customers by stressing that although a product is cheap its price was set this way without sacrificing quality...the product can do what its competing ones do at a lower price...

Mary asks…

Earth’s largest economy…American Women. Women how do you feel about being treated as a consumer object?

"Women’s marketplace dominance is clear in every area.

Statistics overwhelm and convince us that women are the market and the economy as demonstrated not only by the Business Women’s Network but Marty Barletta in her new book on marketing to women.

Marty Barletta notes, “Women are responsible for 83% of all consumer purchases.

Women are the dominant spending force in almost every retail/business category and are the most affluent and influential consumers of today.

* Of all consumer purchases, women are responsible for 83%
* Homes: Directly purchase or influence the purchase of 91% of all new homes
* Home fix-up purchases: More than 55%
* Retail: Account for 88% of customers in the US & Canada
* Auto: Make more than 50% of all auto purchases and influence 85%.
* Home furnishings: 94%
* Vacation choices: 92%
* House purchases: 91%
* Consumer electronics purchases: 51% (women are involved in 89% of all consumer electronic purchase decisions)
* Home Computers: Account for 66% of all purchases
* Bank Accounts: Hold 89% of all accounts
* Credit Cards: Women carry 76 million credit cards, 8 million more then men—(Fast Company, 2004)
* Healthcare: Make 80% of Healthcare decisions and account for 67% of spending
* Health: Purchase 65% of herbal remedies, vitamins and minerals and purchase 80% of all healthcare
* Beauty and hygiene: Purchase more than 90%
* Clothes, accessories: Wear more than 90% of items such as jewelry and perfume
* Meetings: Plan the meetings and comprise the majority of certified meeting planners
* Office Supplies: Purchase $44.5 billion
* Lawn movers: Purchase approximately 81% of riding lawn mowers

All facts noted above are from the 2005 Wow! Quick Facts book and the U.S. Census Bureau, 2004
http://www.ewomennetwork.com/specialoffers/advertise.php

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If we follow the money trail, the system makes it easy for male resources to be transfered into female hands, AA, quotas, family law. The media which is mostly aimed at women (80% of all advertising is aimed at women), tells you that men are always wrong so when he says dont buy you are less likely to listen and it tells you what to buy so the resources transfer up to the corporations that make the products and your media with relative ease.

The question is, while we hear so much about women being sexually objectified and how evil it is, why is there no good or accurate discussion and analysis on the objectification of women as consumer units whos behaviour patterns are inputted via the mass media?

In fact, this hype monetising and controlling of gathering behaviour is often depicted as being sucess, by certain groups.
***In fact, this hyper monetising and controlling of gathering behaviour is often depicted as being sucess, by certain groups
Yes dark eyes, family necessities and office supplies are covered in the categories above.

Admin answers:

I'd be more interested to know how many women got through this question intact.

Laura asks…

Select TWO products which you have bought (or rented), ONE a High Involvement purchase, and ONE a Low Involvem?

Select TWO products which you have bought (or rented), ONE a High Involvement purchase, and ONE a Low Involvement purchase, in the following product categories:

HIGH INVOLVEMENT (select ONE from the following four categories):

A food good,
A travel-related service,
A medical service,
A personal grooming service.
LOW INVOLVEMENT (select ONE from the following four categories):

A household cleaning product,
An automobile-related product (but not an automobile itself),
A lightbulb,
A pen or pencil.
Excluding the title page, any appendices or references write a four page paper in which you do the following:

First Page

Applying the teaching materials and any aditional research, explain why the first product you chose was a High Involvement purchase and why the second was a Low Involvement purchase.

Using the stages of the PurchaseDecision Process in the model of consumerbuying behavior described in Module 1, describe in detail the process you went through in buying each product. Bear in mind that the purpose of the assignment is to demonstrate the depth of your understanding of the teaching materials.

Second Page

Identify and discuss the differences between the way you went through the purchasedecision processes for the two products.

Third and Fourth Pages

Assume now that you are a marketer of both of the two products that you have discussed in the previous pages. Applying the teaching materials and any aditional research, explain how you might use your understanding of the Model of ConsumerBuying Behavior for the two products. (Note that the presentation "Uses of a Model of ConsumerBuying Behavior" is relevant to this part of the assignment).

List all references cited in the body of the paper.

Ensure that you include on the title page:

Admin answers:

With the economy the way it is I haven't purchased any ting in the last 36 months.........

Im using socio-demographic, attitude,beliefs(cognitive), feelings(affective) variable to capture the individual influences affecting the purchasedecision of recycled products in general. For External influences i have group influences as a variable. Can anyone suggest me on what i could ask the respondents to capture the economic, technology and eco labelling factors that influence their buying behavior towards recyled products? I would also highly appreciate other suggestions on external influences that i could use for my research. thank you, gigi

Admin answers:

the easiest way, as i see it, is to ask matrix question.
for example:

On a scale from 1 to 7 (or some other kind of odd numbered scale) how strongly do you agree with the following statements in regards to products produced from recycled materials:
> price is important factor for my decision to buy recycled products
> convenience is important ...
> eco label ..
> etc.

Ken asks…

Why is it so hard fo some people to make a decision when purchasing goods?

I'm new to working in retail. Why do some people agonise over the most simple things when purchasing something? Why is it so difficult to look at whats on offer (whether its a selection of towels, books, whatever), consider the pros and cons of each item to their own particular liking, make a decision, and then go with it? Some people make such a big issue about making a decision that they get to the point where they are incapable of making any decision and therefore don't make one? As a sales person I can only 'sell' or guide a customer so much - the decision of whether they buy a blue or a red towel, a paper back or hard back book, is theirs but they seem to agonise over making the decision. Is this attention seeking behaviour to get sales staff or their shopping friends/partners attention? Are they anxious consumers worried about making a 'wrong' choice, or are they simply time wasters with no intent to purchase anyway? How do you manage these customers in a busy retail environment
I will add that my experience and observation relates to both sexes equally. If anyone has some constructive input it would be appreciated.

Admin answers:

In my experience there is to much choice. Given a choice of only two options it is much easier for a shopper to make a conclusive decision, however when posed with mulitiple options in a competitive environment (take for example a mall where there may be 4 or 5 different places to purchase something similar) it all becomes overwhelming for the shopper. My tip would be to quickly establish the need of the shopper, the decision maker (if more than 1 person is shopping) and present them with one or two options only that best their their requirements and don't bedazzle them with technical or complicated sales pitches (unless they are a techno and want it) and remember to ask to close. Good luck, it's a tough game!